In the prior art, buoyant wave energy converters (“converters”) are typically deployed in a “static” fashion, meaning that during deployment a converter is operatively connected to at least one mooring and/or anchor and consequently the converter is not able to move significantly from its position of initial deployment after said initial deployment. Unless a ship or boat returns to move or decommission the converter, or unless there is a catastrophic failure of the moorings, the converter will remain approximately at its designated location. The approximate and/or average position of the converter will remain approximately static, at least within a margin of a few tens of meters, because the converter's movement will be constrained by its moorings and/or anchors. Although the converter may be able to move laterally within a range of a few tens of meters owing to slack in its mooring lines and/or the (typically unintentional) gradual sliding of its anchor(s) along the seafloor, by and large the converter's geographical position will remain relatively fixed.
Farms of multiple wave energy converters are typically deployed in a similar manner, each converter being deployed “statically” so that it does not move significantly from its initial deployment location. If, for example, a farm of 100 converters is to be deployed, each of those converters will typically be deployed statically, by preselecting a location and then deploying the converter statically at that location. Typically, a converter is towed to a specific location by boat or ship, or carried to that location on the deck of a boat or ship, whereupon it is anchored and/or moored by a crew, typically by anchoring it to the seafloor using an anchor or driven pile or screw. With respect to farms of wave energy converters, this static deployment method is analogous to the standard method of deploying wind turbines in a wind farm, each wind turbine having a fixed position and/or location determined by the longitude and latitude where that turbine's tower is sunk into the earth and/or seafloor. In the typical method of deploying converters, as in the typical method of deploying wind turbines, each device is deployed at its selected location and will remain at that location for the duration of its operative life. Consequently, although the size of a farm may grow through the addition of new converters, each individual converter in the farm does not move.
A disadvantage of this “static” deployment method is that deploying a farm consisting of a large number of converters typically involves towing or carrying a large number of converters out to their selected static positions in the ocean and using crews to moor and configure the converters at those locations. In challenging ocean conditions typical of wave energy converter deployments, the mooring and configuring of devices in this manner can be dangerous. And, owing to the large number of towing “trips” required to deploy a large number of converters, the “static” deployment method tends to be costly.